Ribbon no Kishi
Princess Knight

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I think it's only fair to start this review by mentioning I'm a big fan of Osamu Tezuka's works. He's created some of the best manga in history and his influence has been absolutely integral to the growth of anime and manga as a whole. However, despite Princess Knight paving the way for future manga and anime, by today's standards it's a tough pill to swallow.

Princess Knight (Known in Japan as Ribbon Knight) is a fairytale story set mostly in the kingdom of Silverland. In the world of Princess Knight, unborn children are given either a girl heart or a boy heart, and this influences ... which gender they will be when they're born. The story starts with an angel named Tink who accidentally gives one baby both a boy and a girl heart. To make matters worse, this baby is the daughter/son of the king and queen of Silverland, and so God sends Tink to take back the baby's boy heart since they were supposed to be a boy. Several years later we meet Prince/Princess Sapphire, a young man/woman who is able to be both genders as he/she pleases. This proves to be a problem as the king of Silverland dies, which means Sapphire now has to ascend the throne despite truly being a woman. The story takes many twists from this point, but this is the gist of what makes up the story.

The first problem some people may have with Princess Knight is the art. Personally, I liked it. It's a bit simple, especially with the backgrounds, but it's all done in Tezuka's signature style and has a lot of personality to it. Even this early on, Tezuka had a knack for portraying emotion well, and it really helps elevate the story to be so well drawn. The panel layout starts off a bit strange, but by the end Tezuka seems to have adopted a consistent layout that's easy to read and makes sense. Tezuka also includes some of his signature jokes, most notably the gag character Hyoutan-Tsugi, AKA Gourdski. The art isn't incredible, but it's certainly serviceable and nice to look at.

The story and characters are unfortunately where Princess Knight falls apart. At times it feels like the characters act in a way that is either hard to follow or doesn't make sense to the reader. I can't give examples without spoiling things, but there's a notable example of a character's hatred disappearing seemingly on a whim, and it's hard to relate to since there's never any conflict over how this is resolved. As for the plot, it unfortunately employs deus ex machina far more often than I'm comfortable with. It's excusable in some cases where it actually does lend to the story and isn't too distracting, but by the end of Princess Knight it becomes a distracting way to lengthen the story beyond what it needed to be when it was already wrapping up just fine. A new subplot and villain are introduced at the end after the main conflict is resolved, and this is arguably the most disappointing aspect of Princess Knight. It ends in a very haphazard way, which leaves me with misgivings about recommending it.

So in closing, I can't really suggest reading Princess Knight from an entertainment perspective. Fans of Tezuka and manga history should definitely give it a read as it's actually quite good given that it's now over 50 years old. But for casual readers, it's a hard sell.

I apologize that this review is a bit of a mess.

Princess Knight is a shoujo manga written by Osamu Tezuka in 1953. It is also one of the earliest shoujo manga in existence. It (probably) inspired many classics like Revolutionary Girl Utena, Rose of Versailles, and many more. I will be reviewing Vertical's release, which is 2 volumes.

Art: Love old Disney cartoons? Then you'll probably love the artwork. Unfortunately, I don't like it at all. The male characters often feature exaggerated facial proportions, while the female characters feature much of the same. None of the characters are particularly attractive, ignoring the young female lead.To ... go more in depth: The characters usually have rather long noses, floppy feet. Pretty much everything about them is silly. The backgrounds aren't very impressive either. Most of the time the floors look like cushions and the backgrounds are usually not very extravagant. Having such small panels could possibly be an excuse for the lackluster backgrounds.

Story: Nothing too impressive, but I'll try to elaborate. Most chapters follow a set formula of: Bad guy has plan> Plan starts> Plan backfires> next chapter. I can't really elaborate much since there's not so much I can possibly say about it. It would be nothing more than generic by today's standards.

Characters: Everyone is pretty much a cardboard-cutout besides the young female prince. She's interesting because she's forced to lead a life playing both genders, but all she wants is to be female. The villains(for the first half) try to expose the fact that she's a women, and they eventually succeed.
The villains are pretty much standard dumb-asses. There's also a prince and he's apparently handsome.

Enjoyment: You'll probably enjoy this as long as you don't take the story seriously. Because it's certainly not a well written piece. I would suggest only reading this if you're interested in the history of shoujo manga, or huge disney fans.

Recommendations:
-Revolutionary Girl Utena
-Rose of Versailles
-Fushigi na Melmo

As you all know, this is not just a manga for young girls but a manga for young girls in the 1960's and the dialogue if you have the Vertical translation very much shows. If you are curious to read it, you best be aware of the dated trappings of this work, and that very much includes gender.

As a big fan of the Takarazuka Revue all the way from childhood, Osamu Tezuka wanted Princess Knight to be his experiences with the revue in manga form in the way of a "beauty in male clothing." When you read the story, you will very much see that ... Sapphire is, indeed, a beauty in male clothing but, it is her beauty or rather, "her girl's heart" that is the major source of conflict. For example, Madame Hell wants to take Sapphire's girl heart to make her daughter, Hecate, more feminine and graceful. In another example, Venus (the goddess yes) is so jealous of Sapphire's beauty that she has cursed Sapphire to be an amnesiac. Overall, while Sapphire can indeed fence even with only the girl's heart later in the story, her beauty, or rather, her girl's heart drives the plot in contrast to the secondary role of her boy's heart, which is taken away from her later on in the story and is proved to be not as needed for the ability to fence (as we can see with Friebe, the swords-woman). Therefore, there isn't really that much revolutionary discussion about gender, for Sapphire is more defined by her gender in spite of her princely aesthetic and her fencing as the story progresses.

Speaking of gender, the two-heart system is certainly outdated for modern readers. In the story, a boy's heart makes the person brave and strong and a girl's heart doesn't, so Sapphire immediately loses her strength and the will to fight when her boy's heart gets taken away or when her girl's heart overpowers her boy's heart. For example, when Sapphire fights the King's guards as Phantom Knight, she suddenly loses the willpower to fight when she hears a flute from Tink and immediately becomes weak. In contrast, Sapphire has her girl's heart taken away and still has her boy's heart, so she suddenly gains the confidence to retake the crown from King Plastic and people in the court suddenly take her seriously. From here, these two examples demonstrate the theme of gender and society but in a way that as I said, is not exactly ground-breaking. After all, these two examples declare that a girl's heart makes one weaker and a boy's heart doesn't, even if the girl's heart still retains the fencing ability.

And apparently, a girl's heart can make one's agency more passive in a story that is literally about her. One such example is Sapphire's mental anguish after Prince Franz's rejection of her love due to a forced marriage with Hecate and the intensification of it after she has been shot by an arrow. In that example, she says Franz one last time before passing out, so now Franz has to be the one to defeat Madame Hell, a villain who has been tormenting Sapphire for so long to get Sapphire's girl heart and manages to retrieve it while Sapphire's unconscious. Another example would be Captain Blood's forcible reveal of Sapphire's disguise as the flaxen-haired maiden to Franz Charming. In this example, Sapphire doesn't intend to reveal herself as the flaxen-haired maiden, for she doesn't even want to, but Captain Blood forcibly puts a blonde wig onto her and Franz Charming suddenly makes the connection. Suddenly, all feelings of enmity towards Prince Sapphire have vanished from Franz Charming.

However, it is this sudden shift to love for Sapphire (and I say sudden because he doesn't show any conflict or questions about the reveal after hating on Sapphire but loving her disguise for so long) that has given Franz Charming more role in the story. As I said before, it is Franz Charming who has defeated Madame Hell while Sapphire stays unconscious in a manner that is quite similar to Snow White (figures because Osamu Tezuka is a Disney fan). However, there is also another similar example: Franz Charming's mission to get the flower of rebirth from Venus after being told about it by Tink. In this example, we see Franz Charming declare his love for Sapphire over Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, and Venus' descent into jealousy. Venus falls in love with Franz over his actions--the act of venturing on a mission and the act of declaring his love--but becomes envious of Sapphire over her being--her beauty even while unconscious.

Sapphire's beauty still takes a major role, even more so near the end of the story. For example, when Venus curses Sapphire to be ugly, Sapphire lies unconscious, but her face remains hidden from us, the reader. The story-telling decision of not showing Sapphire's face further hammers the point of Sapphire's character: "a beauty in male clothing." Sapphire's beauty is so at stake that Tink has to intervene and persuade Venus to turn Sapphire back from being beautiful even to the point of calling upon "Father" to scold Venus. Therefore, in spite of the other attributes that she has, her beauty still defines her and even drives the plot of her story.

Now, there are female characters who are different and unique from Sapphire and the gender status-quo that she represents in spite of her unconvential princely presentation. One of these characters is Hectate. She acts mischeveious and refuses Sapphire's girl heart out of fear of no longer enjoying her favorite witchly activities. Another character is Friebe. She is a swords-woman who has joined a tournament in search for a husband. Friebe seems to find one through Sapphire until Sapphire reveals her gender (the pastor says "we can't have girls marrying other girls at church" in that moment and I was like oh gah-lee). Both of them are unique female characters with their own personalities that stand out to the reader and ironically, more agency than the main character.

Unfortunately, the manga seems to double down on the gender status quo with their treatment of these two characters. After Franz Charming defeats Madame Hell, Hectate dies because when Madame Hell goes, so does Hectate. Since we have seen Hectate as a wild and mischievious but deep down, a kind and understanding girl, Hectate's death seems more like a punishment for her behavior or rather, her lineage (she's alive in the animated version, so it's all gucci). In contrast, Friebe stays alive but has to wait a little longer for a husband. Since Friebe assures her uncertain suitor that she can cook and clean, Friebe seems to be allowed to stay allive, for she intends to marry. Hectate, in contrast, doesn't and dies. That's a little hmmmmmmmm

Since this work was produced in 1960's Japan and was written by a male, we have to look to the author's background and his country at that time. Lorie Brau's enlightning essay, "The Women's Theatre of Takarazuka," stated that the goal of Takarazuka by its male founder was to be a respectable alternative to the geisha, who was stigmatized to be unrespectable, and a tool of education for young girls (emphasis on young girls) to be, as the founder literally said, "good wives and wise mothers" after leaving the company for marriage. From here, we can deduce that Tezuka seemed to follow through on the original intentions of the founder of the Takarazuka Revue based on Sapphire's feminity becoming prevalent more and more in the story. For example, Sapphire resigns to her female role by the end of the story and declares to want to marry Franz in a wedding dress. While Sapphire's decision isn't totally out of the blue, it does show Sapphire's acceptance of her gender and the role that society has put for her. And so, just like how the founder of Takarazuka wanted the women in the revue, even the ones who played the male roles, to become "good wives" or "wholesome women" by the end of their career with Takarazuka, Tezuka seems to want Sapphire to be a "good wife" or a "wholesome woman" by the end of her story as well.

This is certainly A Lot, but a manga with such historical value and from the God of Manga nonetheless can elicit such a rambling from me. Anyone reading this article want to know more about the context of the story can read the two articles that are linked below. These articles helped me understand the story better, and I hope they would do so for you, too. :)

Lorie Brau's "The Women's Theatre of Takarazuka:" http://faculty.humanities.uci.edu/sbklein/articles/gender/Brau-Takarazuka.pdf
Dafne Veliz's "The Tezuka Revue: How an all-woman theatre troupe influenced the Godfather of Manga:" https://www.animefeminist.com/history-the-tezuka-revue-how-an-all-woman-theatre-troupe-influenced-the-godfather-of-manga/